Dead Fish

CKreef

CKreef

New member
Well three of my fish have died because of ich and the others dont look so hot. They are in a qt tank and have been fed garlic but the are just getting worse. For a few days they were clear and acting great then overnight they were covered and died today. The tanks water checks out fine , So I guess I will just have to see how the others fare. All my corals in the 58 are doing great so I guess it will be a no fish tank for a while. Iam going to leave all fish out of it for at least another month. It takes 40 days to break the cycle of ich right?????
 
I know very little about ich, but if I'm not mistaken most fish carry ich, but they don't exhibit it as disease unless the fish are stressed or something along those lines. I also think the visible ich (white spots) is actually a later stage of ich, it's just then visible. Were your fish in the reef tank and you took them out to treat them? I had fish only before I even knew what a coral was. I always had battles with ich. Myself and others swear that something about fish being in a more natural environment (live rock, corals, etc.) decreases the liklihood of ich (anecdotal on my end, not scientific). I dunno...good luck.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7392739#post7392739 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by greystreet41
most fish carry ich, but they don't exhibit it as disease unless the fish are stressed or something along those lines.
Click to expand...

Not true, not true, not true. Please release this from your memory reserves. They only have ich if the ich is transmitted to it from another fish.

Since you have the fish in QT now, your best bet and safest way to treat the ich is to do hyposalinity at 1.009. You can lower the salinity fairly quickly in about 3-4 days if you want. Then keep it there for at least 4-6 weeks after the last spot of ich is observed. After the 4-6 weeks you can raise your salinity SLOWLY over a week or so. The hypo will kill all the ich on your fish in QT but make sure you watch the salinity carefully.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7392808#post7392808 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Freed


Since you have the fish in QT now, your best bet and safest way to treat the ich is to do hyposalinity at 1.009. You can lower the salinity fairly quickly in about 3-4 days if you want. Then keep it there for at least 4-6 weeks after the last spot of ich is observed. After the 4-6 weeks you can raise your salinity SLOWLY over a week or so. The hypo will kill all the ich on your fish in QT but make sure you watch the salinity carefully.
Click to expand...

Sounds good, you can lower the salinity to 1.009 over a couple of hours though, fish tolerate drops in salinity very well, just not increases. HTH

Matt
 
You MUST make sure of your salinity with a calibrated refractometer if you are going to do hypo. Swing arm hydrometers are very unreliable and are notorious for being way off at times. If you use a swing arm with hypo you run the risk of too low of salinity and killing your fish.
 
Since we are on the topic. Has anyone ever been to a LFS and not seen atleast one bit of ich? Most LFS have all their tanks plumbed together. With plenty of hosts and tanks always full of fish/hosts could you not say all fish bought from a LFS have ich?

"They only have ich if the ich is transmitted to it from another fish.
"

So are you saying that ich only goes from fish to fish and not environment to fish? You could remove ich ridden fish from a tank. Then drop in a healthy fish and it would never get ich because there is not another fish in the tank?
 
I'm not about to enter the argument about how many fish do or do not have ich, but from what I understand about it, it is extremely difficult to kill once the parasites are embedded in the fish (i.e., once you know you have an ich problem). After a certain amount of time in the fish, the parasites fall off and remain as cysts on the bottom. Once those cysts rupture, releasing even more parasites, the parasites are free in the tank and attach to any fish they can find. Thus, fish can give it to other fish via the environment.
Most ich treatments that I'm aware of (particularly the copper-based products for freshwater) are designed to target ich when it is in the free swimming stage before it attaches to the fish... so the fish will actually recover (if they are going to) before you can effectively treat and kill them before the next cycle "swarming" cycle. Can't say anything about the dip (except that it might help kill parasites that are close to the surface) because I never had a saltwater ich problem, but if you do it, try to keep it as stress-free for the fish as possible.
 
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Ich can come into a tank on rock, coral or inverts or in the water thereof. Does not only come in on fish. That's why everything should be QTd.
 
It usually does. No fish for 4-6 weeks usually does not allow the fish to survive. No fish=no food for the ich.
 
well if any live they will be in qt for 6 weeks will inverts supply ich with food what about an octopus?
 
How did my fish get ich before then with nothing added for over 3 months? I need to hear how did it get there!!! It happened awhile back when I first upgraded my lights and the tank got too hot in a very short period of time and they breakout with ich. IF ich isn't present within the tank, how did it get into my system? I'm curious about that.... :)
 
so inverts are okay because no food for the ich means the cycle breaks if not im so fed up im ready to sell the tank already planning on redoing some things in the tank since no fish are going to be in it like replace the substrate with sand flatworm exit new powerheads ro unit etc
 
when i worked at wet pets years ago i was told temp played a role in the cycle of ich??? i think qt is the best route to go and try not to introduce fish or other things without the 1 1/2 months qt to break the cycle
 
I had a bad outbreak last year and QTed all fish with hypo, let main set fallow for 6 weeks and haven't seen it since. And will never ever introduce a fish without a proper QT again. I can now QT all corals also with a new QT for corals I set up so plan that route also but thats just me. I scrape way to hard for my tank money to have my fish population wiped out from a $10 fish that wasn't QTed like almost happened last year. The only death I did suffer was the tang that died Before hypo got underway. This is JMO, hope it helps :)
 
I'm with Angela on the QT of everything.

CKreef, from what I understand about ich, the parasite has a life cycle so that different stages of its life requires different hosts. It requires a fish for part of its life cycle, and if all fish are removed, it dies because it can't complete its life cycle and reproduce.

Mikeyjer, I think ich can be present at such levels that it is not apparent. A fish can have ich and as long as it is not stressed, it can keep the ich at bay somewhat. Once stressed, the ich can multiply and you end up seeing the outbreak. If no ich parasites are present, then stress wouldn't introduce it.

I had an ich free tank, and introduced some fish that were from a friends aquarium that didn't apparently have ich, although 6-months before they had a few spots that went away. I put them into my display without a quarantine, and voila -- I now only have the 3 fish I got that had been exposed to ich :(

Jack
 
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